


The 9th Shade: Glowing Eyeballs

by AestheticUsername



Series: 50 Shades of Gay [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basically Dean and Cas with brief mention of other characters, Cas being spooked, Halloween, Haunted House, Haunted House!Worker Dean, Idk I guess they're 18ish in this fic so, M/M, Oneshot, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 00:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16587017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AestheticUsername/pseuds/AestheticUsername
Summary: Working in a haunted house was definitely not all it was cracked up to be. Less scary than Dean had hoped, that's for sure. Seeing things in the light and without the eerie soundtrack playing loudly took the scary aspect completely out of it, especially after an entire week. He just thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't assigned to the bugs and snakes room. That would've totally sucked...





	The 9th Shade: Glowing Eyeballs

**Author's Note:**

> So I was going to post this on Halloween but I forgot lol. We can pretend it's still spooky season, right?

The 9th Shade

 

During a lull in the Halloween rush, Dean swiped a beer from Ash’s stash under the cauldron of boiling eyeballs in the paper-mâché and red light bulb flames.

Working in a haunted house was definitely not all it was cracked up to be. Less scary than Dean had hoped, that's for sure. Seeing things in the light and without the eerie soundtrack playing loudly took the scary aspect completely out of it, especially after an entire week. Dean could count down the seconds between the screams broadcasting over the sound system and accurately mock every moan, groan, shriek, and scratching noise it played. He knew when Benny was going to pop up from the coffin he was hidden inside in the other room to scare the everloving shit out of people with his chainsaw. And he knew when he was supposed to release the wire that made the bony witch on her broom screech and cackle while swinging back and forth across the narrow hallway people had to pass through to get into his room: the witchcraft room. He just thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't assigned to the bugs and snakes room. That would've totally sucked.

It was a Wednesday evening, two weeks before Halloween, and no one was at the haunted house. It opened every year a few weeks into October and closed the first day of November. It wasn't the scariest of haunted houses, that Dean knew even before he had been behind the scenes. Mostly it was just jump scares and creepy noises.

Nevertheless, that seemed to do it for most people and business was awesome ninety percent of the time. There were occasional lulls, but they were great opportunities to chill for a bit, like Dean was doing now.

He popped the tab open on the beer and took a long draft, casually leaning over the chest-height black cauldron that was as big as his car and probably weighed as much. The eyes floating in the bubbling neon green liquid stared up at him as he drank, accusing. This was his fourth stolen beer in as many days.

“I'll pay him back,” he assured them.

Crumpling the now empty can and tossing it with the rest under the cauldron, he headed back to his post behind a false panel in the Victorian style room. The strobe lights didn't mess him up as it had on his first couple days, and, for the first time throughout the whole week, he didn't trip over the tangle of corpses lying in various gory poses on the floor in front of his hiding place. He did, however, manage to walk face first into a sheet of fake spider webs, stub his toe on the stake that had the charred remains of a witch tied to it, and fall backwards into a smaller version of the bubbling cauldron, complete with eyes and goo.

It was a very wet, very fluorescently glowing Dean Winchester that squelched back into the wall minutes later. He didn't realize, but the glowing footprints that led into the wall was a perfect addition to the weirdness of the house. It wasn't until the door was latched and witch-releasing wire was in hand that he found the white glow-in-the-dark eyeball that had somehow managed to worm its way into his pocket. He balanced it on a finger while he watched green goop dry in streaks on his legs and shirt. He could feel it beginning to harden his hair into what probably looked like a porcupine’s back. He hoped it wouldn't stain his clothes. His mom would be pissed.

He heard Benny revving his chainsaw, and definite signs of sheer terror. In seconds, he knew, some one, or ones, would come bolting down the hallway in an attempt to escape a chainsaw massacre.

He tucked the eye back into his pocket and held the wire with both sticky hands, ready to let it go at the drop of a hat. When the screams turned into heavy panting, he let it slip from his fingers, one eye at the peephole in the door. He always liked watching people's reactions. Not that there was really a huge variety. Mostly screams, some curses, and the occasional pants-wetter, if you were lucky.

The short piece of softwood tied to the end of the wire clunked quietly against the wall around the hole, but thanks to the spooky music, no one but Dean heard a thing. The block was in place so the wire couldn't fall all the way through the loops it was positioned in, and the witch wouldn't swing too far and crash to the ground in a heap of mechanical pieces.

The witch’s bony body glowed faintly through the rapidly flashing lights, and she shrieked higher than any whistle Dean had ever heard. She swished across the doorway just as Dean could see figures approaching full speed in the gloom.

The people’s screams were higher than the witch’s.

The witch cackled venomously on her return trip, and Dean pulled the wire back down and secured it by the block of wood so the witch would stay hidden until her next appointment.

The pair stood panting just inside the doorway. Dean could hear see their heads bent close, so he knew they were whispering to each other, but the constant screaming and whistling wind sounds playing on a loop over the sound system made eavesdropping totally impossible.

Dean waited for them to hit the moving floorboards. They did, and he could tell they were getting more and more disoriented.

The witch room was fairly mellow compared to the other rooms. Especially the serial killer and zombie rooms. Those were the _shit_.

The witch room was fairly simple. Despite all the jump scares, there were five scares that were considered main attractions. First the swinging witch, who for some reason had been dubbed Betty, that would pop out screaming loudly enough to wake the dead. Then the moving floorboards, motion activated silly string (meant to be spider’s webs) shot at roughly face height, and black cat that jumped in the middle of the path, hissing and wailing. Lastly, the actress tied to one of many stakes right to the right of the path abruptly screamed threats and revenge promises while getting right in the faces of the guests. All that, paired with the millions of other tiny details and decorations in the room, really made it come together nicely. After all, it was only one room out of nine, no need to give people heart attacks before they were less than halfway through the house.

Dean was thankful he wasn't the one tied to the stake. He'd seen firsthand how many times that girl had been punched in the face. It was _not_ pretty. Sometimes the makeup on her face and neck was actual blood.

Dean’s job was far less violent and far more comfortable. All he had to do was drop a rope, and for that he was eternally grateful.

The silly string’s timing was perfect, and the taller of the two got a shot right to the face. It was his short exclamation that shook Dean from his reverie.

“My eye! It's in my eye! Aaaah, it burns!”

Dean peeked out and saw the taller one clutching at his eyes. The shorter one seemed totally unaffected. They were close enough now for Dean to make out what they were saying.

“C’mon, Castiel. No need to be so dramatic. We're almost through. Maybe the satanist room’s next.”

_The clown room is next, actually,_ Dean thought absently.

The taller seemed absolutely annoyed and actually in pain, wiping his eye with his shirt -not that Dean was focused on him or his perfectly sculpted stomach. Not at all. It's not like they could see him looking, so there was no harm in it.

If the guy was really in pain, it was definitely part of his job to help, right?

“Absolutely,” he muttered, and moved to unlatch the door.

The pair was turned away from him, so they didn't see him sneak up behind them.

“Hey, you-” Dean narrowly avoided being flattened by the smaller one’s fist.

“Woah, woah. Sorry didn't mean to scare you. Need some help?”

“No,” yelled the shorter one.

“Yes,” the other groaned miserably. “It burns.”

“I can help you out of here, if you want,” Dean offered. It was true, he could. The house didn't exactly have a secret passage for employees, but if Dean led him back the way he'd come they'd only have two rooms before they were out.

“Please,” he moaned pitifully.

“Aw, come on, Castiel. Can't we just finish it?”

“Gabriel, I can't feel my face, except for my eye which is burning quite terribly. I'm going to leave, you feel free to go on by yourself. Unless you're scared, that is.” Castiel’s voice was laced with venom, and Gabriel took a step back.

“Ok... see you at the car then.” Gabriel scrambled onward, leaving Dean to escort Castiel to the entrance. The half scream wrung out of Gabriel by the sudden arrival of the black cat made the corners of Dean’s mouth to turn up.

There was a side exit in the vampire room (room number one) that he could take, and they'd be at the side of the house close to the parking lot.

“Ok, ready?”

“Yeah.”

When they got to the doorway, Castiel stopped short, looking up.

“If you're looking for the witch, she's staying up there. That's my job, and I'm not doing it right now.”

Castiel stared at him with wonder.

“You work here?”

“Um. Yeah. Kinda. Let's get you out of here. Come on.”

They made it a few steps before Dean remembered the current state of his hair. He raised his hand to smooth it down, and was stabbed hundreds of times by the surprising hardness it had become in such a short time.

Dean made a mental note to never mess with green goo.

Castiel mumbled something Dean couldn't quite catch under his breath.

“What's that?”

“I said I want to gouge my eye out,” Castiel said a little louder.

“Oh. Okay,” Dean leaned a bit away and shoved his hands in his pockets. He snorted, feeling a familiar object, and held it out to the other boy.

“Gouge it out, huh? You can use this as a replacement.”

Castiel looked at the glow-in-the-dark eyeball in Dean's palm for a second before cracking a tiny smile.

Dean distracted Castiel with small talk as he led him backwards through the house.

There had been a few people Dean had had to lead out of the house. Most because they’d peed themselves (because of Betty) and didn't want to continue with wet pants. The first one had peed herself again when Benny jumped out at them on their way out. Just in case, Benny taught Dean a knock to use if a similar situation happened again

Dean knocked on Benny's crate as he passed. Benny knocked back, letting Dean know he understood, and Dean led Castiel through the rest of the room and into the next. Dean had to swat Bela, the vampire actress, off his neck as they passed by her stage.

Finally they were at the door. Dean led Castiel to the nearest actual light source. After hours of epileptic strobe lights, Dean had trouble focusing right under a constant light.      

Pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket, Dean wiped all the silly string smears off the other’s face.

“That's the best I can do. Can you see? We'll have to walk around to the front. I think they have a nurse or something for emergencies.”

“I hardly consider this an emergency, but-”

“It counts. Come on, we're going.” Dean half pulled, half led Castiel to the front of the building, where he introduced the patient to Jo, the emergency medical care lady. She wiped his face and helped him flush his eye with water from a hose.

Dean left for a moment to find a writing utensil, but he was back in time to hear Jo lecturing Castiel on washing his eye properly when he got home.

When she was finished and let Castiel go, he went up to thank Dean.

“No problem. My pleasure, in fact. I was due for a break anyway. How's the eye?”

“Much better, thanks. Now I have I wait for Gabriel to get finished.” Castiel sighed.

“Listen, Castiel-”

“Actually, you can call me Cas.”

Dean nodded. “Cas. Alright. I'm Dean by the way.”

Another voice called, “Cassie, that was a _mazing_ . You _have_ to go through it all. Wait till you get to the zombie room. It's _per_ fect!”

Cas sighed and smiled a little.

“Well, I’d better get going. Can't wait to listen to Gabriel’s stories for the rest of the night.”

Dean waved and Cas returned the gesture, jogging to catch up to Gabriel. He didn't make it very far.

“Hey,” Dean called. Cas turned and barely caught the object Dean tossed to him. It was the glow-in-the-dark eye Dean had offered him earlier. Castiel smiled and looked back up to Dean, who had already turned and was heading back into the haunted house.

“See you around, Cas,” he called over his shoulder.

Cas nodded.   
It wasn't until he was in the car with Gabriel that he saw Dean’s number written on the back of the eye in smudged black ink between the words “ _Dean_ ,” and “ _call_ _me?_ ”

 

-END- 

**Author's Note:**

> So I checked and uh Google docs says that I created the document on November 1st, 2016 so really I missed posting this for two whole Thanksgivings..... It's fine :) anyway we love kudos in this house and they're free so...... You know what to do  
> 


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